Business

Inside Uber: Women either 'drink the Kool-aid' or suffer

Women working at Uber face a culture of sexism and harassment that takes a serious toll not just on their careers, but also their mental health.

"I knew two women engineers who both experienced psychological trauma after being at Uber," a former engineer who worked for Uber said in a phone callTuesday.

"Uber is also the only place where I’ve had to walk around the block with somebody and have them cry on my shoulder," she added.

This woman, who worked at Uber in 2015, gave an account of her time at the company that closely mirrors the experience of Susan Fowler Rigetti (who goes by Susan J. Fowler on her blog), the former employee of the ride-hailing startup, who has renewed discussion of the company's treatment of women with her blog post recounting a "very, very strange year at Uber." But Fowler is not alone; now, another former Uber engineer is speaking out.

The engineer, who has 10 years of experience in the tech industry, requested anonymity due to a non-disclosure agreement with Uber; she will here to forth be referred to as "the Engineer" in this article. She said five different friends, all of whom were quite familiar with her tenure at Uber, all sent her emails containing a link to Fowler's blog post.

"Uber is also the only place where I’ve had to walk around the block with somebody and have them cry on my shoulder"

The Engineer immediately read the post and was compelled to share her story after this reporter reached out to her via LinkedIn; the similarities between Fowler's experience and her own were such that she could not stay quiet.

In an hourlong phone call, the Engineer detailed incident after incident at Uber, which she defined as a toxic workplace from day one.The human resources department did little to help improve the environment, our source claimed, and was unhelpful even when dealing with innocuous issues. In one such case, a simple contract question was met with a dismissive response, like the HR equivalent of a shruggie.

When the Engineer read Fowler's piece, she was most struck by the allegation that Fowler was told she "wasn't being technical enough." The Engineer received feedback that was nearly identical to this. She had worked as an engineer at some of the biggest names in the tech industry — being "technical" was what she did for a living. Nevertheless, she said, "I was told I wasn’t 'technical' by my manager and that’s so patently absurd."

And yet, despite their failure to create an inclusive environment, Uber is looking to recruit women.

"I do not know a single technical woman in the Valley that Uber has not called," the Engineer said.

Sexism and harassment are not problems unique to Uber, as pointed out by Aimee Lucido, a software engineer currently at the company. She wrote a blog post on Medium titled "Reflecting on Susan Fowler’s Reflections."

"I have been shouting about this for years now — and the world at large has been for far longer — and yet people are still surprised when this sort of thing happens. If the world, and Uber specifically, takes one thing away from this, it should be that this is not an isolated incident," Lucido wrote.

Lucido is active at Uber in promoting diversity and inclusion programs, and wrote that she has stayed at Uber to try to change it from the inside. "But when I most feel like quitting is when Uber most needs me," Lucido wrote.

In response to the fallout from Fowler's post, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick circulated a memo in which he suggested it was time to move on. "What is driving me through all this is a determination that we take what’s happened as an opportunity to heal wounds of the past and set a new standard for justice in the workplace," he wrote.

Kalanick's memo also shared Uber's diversity data. According to their internal numbers, 15.1 percent of Uber employees are women in engineering, product management and scientist roles. That number is lower than Facebook, Google, Twitter and Apple and, to make it worse, could also be "baked," the Engineer suggested.

There were only two female engineering managers when she was there, out of 60 engineering managers. "I think it's quite telling nobody has released the number of percentage of first-level engineering managers who are women," she said.

"I think it's quite telling nobody has released the number of percentage of first-level engineering managers who are women"

Uber declined our request for a further breakdown of the data cited by Kalanick, but the company said they plan to release a diversity report in the near future.

Our Engineer left Uber with a bitter taste in her mouth — and a particularly strict non-disclosure agreement. When it comes to speaking of problematic in-office experiences, Uber alumni are only allowed to say, "The matter has been resolved."

Uber doesn't just keep its former employees' mouths shut. It also essentially blacklists them after they leave.

"HR pressured me into signing a severance agreement which, among other things, [prevents] me [from] working for Uber ever again and anybody that it does business with. It's not like a five-year thing. It's forever," she said.

Given the company's problems, why do people continue to work at Uber?

"The stock," said the Engineer without hesitation.

Uber, like many startups, relies on a mix of salary and equity to recruit new hires. When you're valued at more than $68 billion, an equity package can be worth more than $1 million.

"Their packages tend to be heavy unless they think they can get away with screwing you," she said. "If you’re a new grad or someone who is early in your career, they give people lowball offers and they lean on the power of the stock to make people stay."

"The women who are there who have had the Kool-aid and other people who are there truly believe that Uber is [making] the world better," she said. "I believe T.K. is a true believer in Ayn Rand kind of stuff. [These women] are true believers that Uber is special, on a mission to save the planet, to build an efficient logistic system."

The stock and the message had convinced her to join Uber, but neither were enough for her to stick around a detrimental workplace.

Fowler became a whistleblower Sunday by publishing her account. It is unclear if and by how much Fowler violated a non-disclosure agreement. She left the company in December 2016.

The Engineer, for her part, said she wished she could have led more change. "There’s a part of me now that’s ashamed that I left."

Now she just hopes for action, not just another discrediting of these reports, not just another incident forgotten with time by the Uber community.

"It’s too late for me, but I hope for the next generation of technical women it will change," she said.

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